#Dutch Machine Factory

[machinefabriekkrimpen]

Machinefabriek Krimpen: A Leading Dutch Machine Factory for Precision Engineering

In the world of industrial manufacturing, precision and quality are essential. Machinefabriek Krimpen, a renowned Dutch machine factory, specializes in the production of high-quality machine components, including gear wheel machine factory products and custom-made machinery parts. With years of expertise, cutting-edge technology, and a customer-centric approach, we deliver exceptional solutions to various industries.

Why Choose Machinefabriek Krimpen?

As a leading machine factory, we offer tailor-made solutions to meet the unique needs of our clients. Our commitment to quality and innovation ensures:

Precision Engineering: Every component is manufactured with the highest accuracy.

Durability and Strength: We use only top-grade materials for long-lasting performance.

Custom Solutions: Whether you need a specialized gear wheel machine factory product or general machinery factory parts, we tailor our services to your requirements.

Advanced Technology: Our modern facilities and CNC machining capabilities ensure optimal results.

Our Expertise in Gear Wheel and Machinery Manufacturing

At Machinefabriek Krimpen, we specialize in the production of gear wheel machine factory components that ensure smooth power transmission in mechanical systems. Our expertise includes:

Precision Gear Wheels: Designed for high-performance applications.

CNC Machining and Milling: Ensuring consistent quality and accuracy.

Custom Machinery Parts: Made to exact specifications for various industries.

Industries We Serve

As an established Dutch machine factory, we provide top-tier solutions for industries such as:

Automotive and Transport – High-performance machine components for vehicles.

Aerospace and Defense – Precision-engineered parts for critical applications.

Energy and Infrastructure – Durable mechanical solutions for power plants and infrastructure projects.

Manufacturing and Automation – Reliable machinery parts for automation systems.

Custom Manufacturing Solutions

We understand that every industry has different needs, which is why our machine factory offers custom manufacturing solutions. Whether you require one-off prototypes or large-scale production, we have the expertise and technology to deliver exceptional results.

Why Machinefabriek Krimpen Stands Out

Highly Skilled Engineers and Technicians ensuring quality and precision.

Fast Turnaround Times without compromising on accuracy.

Competitive Pricing for both small-scale and large-scale production.

Strict Quality Control Measures to guarantee flawless products.

Contact Us for Your Machinery Needs

Looking for a trusted Dutch machine factory? Machinefabriek Krimpen is your ideal partner for high-quality machine parts and gear wheel machine factory components. Contact us today to discuss your project and get a custom quote. Visit: https://machinefabriekkrimpen.nl/en/

[nthspecialll]

Rdr1 newspaper "Blackwater #59" transcriped

Masterlist link.

Blackwater Beset By Savages. Notes Anthropologist Survives.

A vicious gunfight on the streets of Blackwater, perpetrated by a barbaric gang, including some Indians, has further compounded claims that the Native problem in the region is worsening rather than improving. The subject of the attack was a certain Professor Harold MacDougal, a prominent academic on sabbatical from Yale University to carry out a study on the Native population with a view to identifying the true root of their resistance to civilization, culture and religion. Professor MacDougal, proving the true robustness of a classical education, and an unnamed gunman were able to subdue the assailants and make their escape. It is believed that this abhorrent band of savages is being led by notorious outlaw Dutch van Der Linde. Man say van Der Linde, who disappeared without a trace around six years ago, has been living amongst the Natives for some time now, raising the question of whether he is inciting the unrest, or has fallen victim to a process of ‘de-civilisation’ much like the Wolf Girl we reported on last year.

The Ladies Battle: Suffragists march On Capital

Suffragists marched on the capital Tuesday in a beleaguered effort to secure the vote. Yet how does the acquisition of the vote affect the property privileges of men? Until this question is satisfactorily answered it shall remain the complication preventing women voting. Granting of property rights in women would result in cataclysmic confusion and the destruction of our core values as well as our families. These shrieking and savage mobs of harpies make Uncle Sam shudder.

French Literature “Little More than Pornography”

A powerful group of Congressmen in Washington are pushing forward with plans to outlaw French literature in this country. The congressmen, who cross party lines, but none of whom actually speak French, argue that French literature is little more than cheap pornography. They believe it is sure to rip the soul out of the nation and do little to help the hard working American family. Referencing words by Zora, Diderot and Voltaire, one congressman listed the horrors these books contain. “There’s tales of nudity illicit sexual congress, incest, prositution, sexual pleasure and much else besides. While having these books translated for me, I came over all funny and took a turn. I am not ashamed to say I disgraced myself. A less upstanding person than myself could have been destroyed by the revelations in these books and seen his life reduced to a rubble of self pleasure and Onanism. Thankfully, it will take more than Onanism to take me down, but the same cannot be said for the population at large.” The group is suggesting that all French books, along with the language and even French bread and letters be outlawed in the US.

Industrialist Comes Under More Fire

“In the fight for progress there have been many casualties,” Jeremiah Somerset once said. However, the wealthy industrialist’s business practices have come under scrutiny once more following accusations that he has been poisoning horses to make way for his mechanized threatening machines. This strikes a particular chord in the aftermath of last year’s allegations that Mr. Somerset was behind the weevil epidemic that ruined crops in New Austin, forcing farmers to sell their land at a fraction of its worth, and the infamous Irving factory explosion that killed over 400 child workers in 1903. A staunch supporter of prohibition, Mr. Somerset is also said to be manufacturing and stockpiling vast quantities of alcohol. He has so far declined to comment on these allegations.

Automobile Deaths - 30. Lynchings - 127.

While the fascinating march of science brings us the sweet sounds recorded for a victorla, the sound of automobiles has spelled death for an increasing number of citizens as safety fears grow about the horseless carriage. Lynchings are up, which many attribute to the weather.

Patent Medicine Picture Show In Blackwater

Druggists and shopkeepers expressed consternation at the new motion picture show currently playing in Blackwater. It is titled, “The Dangers of Doctors and Patent Medicines.” Taken to task are the patent medicines and traveling salesmen who ply their wares. This publication has enjoyed a long and happy relationship with many patent medicine companies who support the newspaper and we agree that death, drug addiction and other hazards from such compounds are completely baseless. 

Tax Increase Necessary To Fund Government Expansion

Law makers in Washington DC yesterday insisted that significant tax increases were necessary in order to pay for the greatly expanded federal government. When challenged that such actions were unconstitutional, and that the states had powers that could and should not be dismissed by the federal government’s ceaseless growth, law makers laughed and said the alternative is that we simply print more money and devalue the currency, so either way, do not forget who is in charge.

Dinosaur Fossil Hoax Embarrases Scientists

Scientistswere rushing to explain the recent report that prominent dinosaur researcher Prof.Bellum Brown was observed making plaster casts of dinosaur bones. Brown claims it was for research purposes. Critics say that dinosaur bones are manufactured in labs and buried by scientists who later excavate them in an attempt to stray mankind. They also indicate that nowhere in the historical record is there a mention of giant lizards.

Nipping Conception In The Bud

The North American Birth Control League published newest list of pregnancy prevention techniques. Coverings for the male member fashioned from animal intestines are found to be the most useful. Additionally, marital congress should occur shortly after a woman’s curse. Suffragettes spoke out against birth control methods, saying that devices that cover the member are indicative of brother creeping. After publishing their recommendations, members of the League were arrested and failed due to laws prohibiting the discussion of sex in our society.

Etiquette Tips

Excerpts from William Laggard’s Guide to Manhood

I, Etiquette prescribes that men of distinction eat alone in a room, uninterrupted by the frivolity of women and children.

II, A code of manners in street greetings, such as throwing down one’s outerwear into puddles or the doffing of one’s headwear will give evidence of correct breeding.

III, if you are going to be in the presence of ladies, beware of onions, spirits, flatulence and tobacco.

IV, When making a formal call on a lady, hat and gloves should be in his hands and, although his happy demeanor may, his pantaloons should not betray his excitement.

V, Men are expected to be extremely active in the ballroom. While dancing, hands should never touch the corset less they spoil her dignity. If uncertain about their technique or gracefulness, it is suggested men dance with each other until they are more sure of themselves.

Miscellany

Natas (Surname Unknown), of Indian descent, has passed away at Bear Claw Cabin in Tall Trees. May you find God, my dear friend, Prof. Harold MacDougal Esq.

MISSING PERSON: Sam Odessa, age 35, disappeared from his home six weeks ago. Possibly heading West towards California. His wife, Elena, seeks any information as to his whereabouts.

Make your hard earned money work hard for you. Daily poker and blackjack tables at the Blackwater Saloon. Serious gamblers only.

Dorothy Maygrove wishes to retract the hasty, and somewhat hopeful, notice of her husband’s death. Archie Maygone is decidedly alive, well and, for the time being, sober.

Medicine of the finest quality. Origin unknown but efficacy unequaled. Dr. Archie Gallagher. General Practitioner, Thieves’ Landing. New Austin. 

Experienced and punctual stenographer of trustworthy appearance announces that is available for office work. Swift and proficient, despite slight aural impairment. No references available at this time.

It aint pride. It’s honor.

[girlactionfigure]

THURSDAY HERO: Johan Weidner 

Johan “Jean” Weidner was a Dutch businessman who created an extensive underground rescue network and saved the lives of 800 Jews and 112 downed Allied aviators.

Born in Brussels in 1912 to Dutch parents, Jean grew up in Switzerland in a devout Seventh-Day Adventist home. His father, a minister who taught Greek and Latin at a church seminary, wanted Jean to become a clergyman but instead he decided to go into business. He moved to Paris in 1935 and started an import-export textile firm.

When the Germans occupied Paris in 1940 Jean dropped everything and fled to Lyon in unoccupied France. He had to abandon his company, so he started a new one in Lyon.

In 1941, as the situation for Jews and other enemies of the Nazi war machine grew more dire, Jean took action. He created an underground network secretly run out of his textile factory. To facilitate escape to Switzerland, Jean opened a second branch of his business in Annecy, near the Swiss border. The route was dotted with safe houses and locals sympathetic to the Resistance who sheltered the refugees and helped them cross the border.

Known as Dutch-Paris, the network Jean created became one of the most effective resistance groups during war. Also called “the Swiss Way,” the network’s mission was to rescue people targeted by the Nazis by hiding them until they could help them escape to a neutral country.

Jean was leader of 330 men, women and teenagers working clandestinely in occupied countries of Western Europe as well as in Switzerland.

Dutch-Paris was constantly in need of funds to support their extensive activities, and Jean made a deal with the Dutch ambassador to Switzerland. The Dutch government-in-exile in London would fund the rescue operations if Jean 1) expanded the escape route to reach all the way to Spain and 2) used the route to convey intelligence on microfilm between Dutch resistance groups. Jean agreed to the terms and the expanded network began operating in November 1943.

In January of 1944 they began rescuing downed Allied aviators, an especially dangerous operation because it attracted the attention of German military intelligence officers. In only a month they saved over 112 pilots before tragedy struck. In February 1944, a young Dutch woman working as a courier was arrested by the French police and turned over to the Gestapo. They tortured her physically and psychologically, and threatened her family. She cracked under pressure and gave up names of her colleagues colleagues in the Dutch-Paris network.

Germans started arresting members of Dutch-Paris, including Jean’s sister Gabrielle. Over the next few months, many of the rescuers were sent to concentration camps, where at least forty of them were murdered. Gabrielle survived until liberation by the Russians, but she was so malnourished that she died days later.

Jean was able to escape capture long enough to rebuild networks and continue his rescue operations. In Toulouse he was arrested by the French police, but he escaped before they were able to transfer him to the Germans.

France was liberated in November 1944 and Jean was invited to London by Queen Wilhemina to inform her about the Dutch-Paris route, and the situation for Dutch civilians in areas occupied by the Germans. He was made a Captian in the Dutch Armed Forces but after the war he was let go by the Dutch government for not being a professional policeman. Jean returned to his textile business, and in 1955 emigrated to the United States where he and his wife operated a chain of health food stores for several decades.

He received multiple awards for his wartime heroism including the US Medal of Freedom, the Croix de Guerre and the Legion d’honneur. He was honored as Righteous Among the Nations by Israeli Holocaust Memorial Yad Vashem, and a grove of trees was planted in his name. In 1993, at the opening of the United States Holocaust Museum in Washington DC, he was one of seven people chosen to light candles honoring rescuers.

Jean Weidner died in 1994 in Southern California. Abraham Foxman, then National Director of the ADL said, “John Weidner lived his entire life giving back… Until his death, he lived a life of selflessness and service, working tirelessly to make the world a better place.”

For creating an underground escape route for victims of the Nazis, and saving hundreds of lives, we honor Jean Weidner as this week’s Thursday Hero.

[gpuzzle]

Where's the rant on water wheels. I want the rant. Gimme the rant.

I got some methylphenidate, a coke zero, some hard bop records, and fuck all to do at work. Send it. Disclaimer, this is largely a rant about European Industrial History; if anyone has any sources on like, Indian Industrial History or Ottoman and Arabic Industrial History or others, please send it to me, I would love to read it.

It is the year 1400. Your parents and grandparents lived through hell. You are some pimply teenager who's apprenticing to be a blacksmith. You go to work on what is basically a factory; there's a blast furnace that has bellows that pump in air from the top; there are trip hammers for shaping the tools, there's all sorts of mills for grinding ore into dust. It is all powered by water wheels.

The late medieval world was so much more industrialized than we give it credit for. Once the utter chaos of the early middle ages settled, the great knowledge network known as the monasteries held the keys to the kingdom; the one transnational organization dedicated to passing on knowledge. Meanwhile, the labor in cities, between merchants and craftsmen and those offering services, began to organize and gather capital to establish these industries, for leather, for iron, for wine, for cloth, for paper, for masonry. The structures of the economy were so much more modern than we give them credit for; it's everything else that's basically ripped from the Hellenistic period at best.

Watermills factor into this because they are the basis of all economies alongside windmills, but windmills are not constant and far more expensive, unless you are the Dutch. Every monastery, every hamlet might have a handful; at least one for grains and one for basic cloth fullinh. And it's producing at a higher level than ever before.

We spend years, ages dealing with this nascent if gross industrial production. Precision isn't a quality of those tools. It's why I think people stating the old adage about how the Romans could have invented the steam engine myopic at best. At its core, despite these grand water wheels, these huge leaps, this age where you might see a genuine industrial district on the rivers of Europe, where guilds establish their great artisanal manufactories, you don't have basic machines like the lathe.

The missing parts for that precision are things which the Renaissance really brought to the fore. It's the ability to mass print technical manuals; it's the ability to draw and sketch and mass print very precise depictions of machinery. It's a need - a profound need - to measure the world to its finest detail, which gave rise to the profession of "scientific instrument maker"! There was such a demand for it these craftsmen especializing in ultra precise gear became a class unto themselves!

And you slowly see, over the course of the 17th century and through the 18th century, a scientific approach to these great engineering projects. The first civil engineers are really taking control of what was before unstandardized master mason knowledge and providing us with the exact details. This is happening all over the place. The guilds must become scientific, become academic or die an ignonimious death. And, to their credit, they very much do. It is not for nothing that economics and engineering, to start, become academic objects of study around then.

Water wheels are inescapable and so are their background noises and smells until essentially the very late 1800s, and they anchor so much of life during that point; they are the premier way of making anything that requires force. And yet, much like every aspect of industrial life, they're completely forgotten or even purposefully ignored in some cases. It's such background noise we tune it out, and slowly lose them. Industrial history and archaeology as a whole is just insanely vulnerable because so much of it can just be removed within a minute and never brought back again. The last exemplar of a Barker reaction turbine sits in Puerto Rico where before it was ubiquituous across the US. A ship mill deteriorates in 50 years. And we forget just how automated life was.

I am tempted to say I am like this because I was born in a country where that sort of industrial history is functionally nonexistant. Brazil was deliberately and purposefully handicapped by Portugal for centuries; printing machines here postdate Napoleon. So to seek to comprehend what life was like in ages past it is this vacuum I seem to comprehend first and foremost.

At its core it's probably because I was a giant Anglophile as a kid.

[thepastisalreadywritten]

A Victorian Era Candle-lit Christmas Tree, late 1800s.

Christmas was not celebrated in modern Europe and America as a familiar way until the mid-1800s.

Christmas only became an American federal holiday in 1870.

Before 1840, most people hadn’t heard of Christmas trees, Santa Claus, or Christmas cards, or even Father Christmas, let alone Rudolph and his red nose.

The reason for the change in the Victorian era was the massive change of industrialization.

Many new machines and inventions were becoming popular, especially factories.

Many people had more money as a result, then they began to spend more and more time with their families.

In United States, Christmas had different meanings for Americans who came from different cultural and religious backgrounds.

Many immigrants brought Christmas traditions from their own countries.

Dutch and German immigrants especially brought ideas like Christmas trees and Santa Claus to their new homes, and helped spread these ideas throughout their communities.

The idea of Christmas trees originated in Germany and became a standard Christmas decoration during the Victorian era — thanks to Queen Victoria and her husband, Prince Albert.

The Queen and Prince Albert had German roots, and when they published a photo of their Christmas tree, people were inspired to try this tradition themselves.

In these early Christmas trees, the presents were actually tied to the branches themselves.

Early Christmas trees didn’t have strings of lights like we do today, so they used candles instead – with a bucket nearby in case of fire.

The Victorians loved to decorate and went all-out for Christmas decorations with lots of greenery, sparkling knickknacks, and rich colors.

In a time before big-box stores and shopping centers, many people made their own decorations with paper and fabric scraps.

[playhousemassacrez]

Poppy Playtime headcanons I made! (Part 2)

Pink is for AU, blue is for canon and purple is for random things that don't make sense, but I thought it would to me.

Huggy often acts like a cat. Whenever he hisses, cleans his fur with his hand or looking like those funny cat meme pictures.

Stella is Dutch. Her family moved to America in 1964.

The reason why Poppy's eyes are bloodshot and red because it’s actually her real eyes being used.

Kissy knows how to knit.

Bron is the oldest of the toys and Baby Long Legs is the youngest.

Despite having intelligence, Huggy can’t help himself from being the “king of stupid”, or whatever Mommy claims him as.

Huggy knows how to play the ukulele.

Skittles is Huggy's favorite candy.

Kissy knows how to do yoga.

The toys often treat Poppy like a baby, even though she clearly hated it. It wasn’t their fault. They just wanted to keep her safe.

Baby Long Legs is three years old, despite being a "baby".

Patty was demoted after “sabotaging” the paint machine. That’s when she met Rich and fell in love with him.

Cat-Bee thinks she’s an actual bee.

Poppy always finds ways to get dirty.

The toys hate to be called "monsters".

Cassie Cutie-Pillar is PJ's owner after she was taken and was experimented on.

The new owner of Playtime Co. took over the company after Elliot passed away. His name was Edward.

The toys have human stomachs so they can eat. Dr. Harvey says it was made to “tailor” their appetite. But it’s not the case.

Poppy always wants to look her best.

Bron was going to be orange, but Elliot was colorblind, so Playtime Co. changed Bron's color to red.

Marie never had extreme night terrors ever since she was brought to Playtime Co. until CatNap was brought to Home Sweet Home.

The reason why Huggy is seen with a yellow bow on his “Remember to take breaks!” poster than his blue bow is because that’s what Playtime Co. had for the cartoon series that only ran for three seasons in the early 90’s before the studio that made the cartoon, and the Smiling Critters cartoon went defunct after the recall of CatNap.

Marie is very flexible at such a young age. Playtime Co. thought that this was a homage to their new toy at the time.

Candy Cat gets sick whenever she eats too much candy.

Poppy doesn’t like Mommy that much sometimes. She's sometimes scared of her.

After Poppy was successful, Playtime Co. made more dolls like Poppy. These include a black Poppy named Violet, a Chinese Poppy named Lily Lee and a male Poppy named Ben Bluebell. These many Poppy variations never saw the light of day.

Stella and Claire knew each other in college.

When Huggy escaped the factory for the first time, he was so confused and scared by everything he saw, like seeing trees taller than him and grass. The only time he saw these things around him were in picture books or drawings the children made.

Marie was the big sister type and the kids looked up to her a lot since they saw her as the older sister some of them never had. Some kids would even try to comfort her when she has her night terrors.

Stella joined Playtime Co. because she liked the idea of being a part of so many children’s upbringings by providing them with the toys that would shape them.

Rich struggles with regulating his volume. He knows there’s a volume rule, he just never knows how loud he’s being.

Bunzo's teeth are actually not that sharp. They're like puppy teeth.

The Poppy dolls are made of some form of porcelain or china.

[tubbsmccracken]

Matzeliger was born in 1852. He was a black inventor best known for his shoe-lasting machine that mechanically shaped the upper portions of shoes.

Born in Paramaribo, Dutch Guiana [now Suriname], the son of a Dutch father and a black Surinamese mother, Matzeliger began work as a sailor on a merchant ship at the age of 19. After about six years settled in Lynn, where he found employment in a shoe factory and became interested in the possibilities of lasting shoes by machine. Working alone and at night for six months, he produced a model in wood and on March 20, 1883, received a patent. His invention won swift acceptance and within two years had largely supplanted hand methods in Lynn.

His patent was subsequently bought by Sydney W. Winslow, who established the United Shoe Machine Company. The continued success of this business brought about a 50% reduction in the price of shoes across the nation, doubled wages, and improved working conditions for millions of people dependent on the shoe industry for their livelihood. The patent number is 459,899.

Matzeliger received several other patents for shoe-manufacturing machinery, including an improved model of his first lasting machine. He died Aug. 24, 1889, in Lynn, Mass., when only 37, long before he had the chance to realize a share of the enormous profit derived from his invention.

[fuckyeahvanhalen86-95]

When Van Halen was formed in 1973 by the brothers Alex and Eddie Van Halen, Heavy Metal music already existed for a few years and was already showing the musicians from that era that they could really play loud and experiment with heavy riffs and vocals. Although the American band had a sound which was more close to Hard Rock, Eddie always shared his love for Metal. When the band was still in the bar circuit they even used to cover many famous Heavy Metal groups.

During his career that lasted until his death in 2020 at the age of 65, Eddie Van Halen talked a lot about other artists. He even named who in his opinion is the father of Heavy Metal.

THE FATHER OF HEAVY METAL ACCORDING TO EDDIE VAN HALEN

The opinion that Black Sabbath was the band that created Heavy Metal is almost unanimous. The reason is that they were really the first ones to combine heaviness and lyrics that really could send shivers down the spines of listeners at the time. Eddie Van Halen’s opinion was the same, since he told Rolling Stone in 2011 that the father of Heavy Metal music was the Black Sabbath co-founder and guitarist Tony Iommi.

He mentioned the British guitarist when he was being asked about his influences. About him, Eddie said: “He was the father of heavy metal in my mind.” He was then asked if Iommi inspired him to “tune down” his guitar. The Dutch-American guitarist replied: “Well, that was more because it was easier on the singer.”

HE CONTINUED:

“And on top of that, if you listen to our first batch of records, I never tuned to anything. I never tuned to a piano or a tuning machine. So I always would just pick up my guitar and the bass player would tune to me. So we were always in the cracks (between piano keys). I’ve found that most of the things that I’ve stumbled onto were all accidents, you know?” Eddie Van Halen said.

Tony Iommi is the only member of Black Sabbath who was part of all the eras of the band. So he appeared on every record the band ever made. Known also as the “Riffmaster”, Iommi continues to be one of the most influential guitarists in the world. He curiously had to adapt his guitar playing and sound after he lost the tips of his fingers during the last day of his work in a factory in Birmingham.

HE USED TO COVER BLACK SABBATH IN THE EARLY DAYS AND WOULD EVEN SING THE SONGS

Both guitarists were really good friends, they first met each other when Van Halen was Black Sabbath’s opening act back in the late 70s. As any guitarist of that era, Iommi was really impressed by what Eddie could do with the guitar. Van Halen used to perform many Black Sabbath tracks in the bar circuit before they got their first record deal. In some occasions Eddie himself would occupy the vocals.

In 2013, Guitar World made one interview with Eddie and Tony Iommi side by side to talk about their careers. The Van Halen guitarist recalled Sabbath’s influence, saying: “We played just about every Black Sabbath song. I used to sing lead on every Black Sabbath song we did. Things like ‘Into the Void,’ ‘Paranoid,” and ‘Lord of This World,’” Eddie said.

Curiously, Eddie Van Halen almost appeared on a Black Sabbath album. Back in the 90s he was in England and went to visit Iommi in the studio while he was recording Sabbath’s 1994 album “Cross Purposes.” Eddie was invited to play a guitar solo in the song called “Evil Eye” but his part didn’t end up in the record. Iommi recalled that an interview with Rolling Stone, saying that he just couldn’t reproduce the guitar solo Van Halen composed for the track. That forced him to make a new solo so that he finish the song.

During the same conversation, Iommi praised the late Eddie saying that he kept improving his guitar skills throughout the decades. He also said that likes to think about him as an inventor. The main reason was because he always wanted to come up with something new. So reason he kept working on his own guitars and amplifiers to get the sound that he wanted.

[grlbts]

The Tyranny of Convenience

by Tim Wu

Convenience is the most underestimated and least understood force in the world today. As a driver of human decisions, it may not offer the illicit thrill of Freud’s unconscious sexual desires or the mathematical elegance of the economist’s incentives. Convenience is boring. But boring is not the same thing as trivial.

In the developed nations of the 21st century, convenience — that is, more efficient and easier ways of doing personal tasks — has emerged as perhaps the most powerful force shaping our individual lives and our economies. This is particularly true in America, where, despite all the paeans to freedom and individuality, one sometimes wonders whether convenience is in fact the supreme value.

As Evan Williams, a co-founder of Twitter, recently put it, “Convenience decides everything.” Convenience seems to make our decisions for us, trumping what we like to imagine are our true preferences. (I prefer to brew my coffee, but Starbucks instant is so convenient I hardly ever do what I “prefer.”) Easy is better, easiest is best.

Convenience has the ability to make other options unthinkable. Once you have used a washing machine, laundering clothes by hand seems irrational, even if it might be cheaper. After you have experienced streaming television, waiting to see a show at a prescribed hour seems silly, even a little undignified. To resist convenience — not to own a cellphone, not to use Google — has come to require a special kind of dedication that is often taken for eccentricity, if not fanaticism.

For all its influence as a shaper of individual decisions, the greater power of convenience may arise from decisions made in aggregate, where it is doing so much to structure the modern economy. Particularly in tech-related industries, the battle for convenience is the battle for industry dominance.

Americans say they prize competition, a proliferation of choices, the little guy. Yet our taste for convenience begets more convenience, through a combination of the economics of scale and the power of habit. The easier it is to use Amazon, the more powerful Amazon becomes — and thus the easier it becomes to use Amazon. Convenience and monopoly seem to be natural bedfellows.

Given the growth of convenience — as an ideal, as a value, as a way of life — it is worth asking what our fixation with it is doing to us and to our country. I don’t want to suggest that convenience is a force for evil. Making things easier isn’t wicked. On the contrary, it often opens up possibilities that once seemed too onerous to contemplate, and it typically makes life less arduous, especially for those most vulnerable to life’s drudgeries.

But we err in presuming convenience is always good, for it has a complex relationship with other ideals that we hold dear. Though understood and promoted as an instrument of liberation, convenience has a dark side. With its promise of smooth, effortless efficiency, it threatens to erase the sort of struggles and challenges that help give meaning to life. Created to free us, it can become a constraint on what we are willing to do, and thus in a subtle way it can enslave us.

It would be perverse to embrace inconvenience as a general rule. But when we let convenience decide everything, we surrender too much.

Convenience as we now know it is a product of the late 19th and early 20th centuries, when labor-saving devices for the home were invented and marketed. Milestones include the invention of the first “convenience foods,” such as canned pork and beans and Quaker Quick Oats; the first electric clothes-washing machines; cleaning products like Old Dutch scouring powder; and other marvels including the electric vacuum cleaner, instant cake mix and the microwave oven.

Convenience was the household version of another late-19th-century idea, industrial efficiency, and its accompanying “scientific management.” It represented the adaptation of the ethos of the factory to domestic life.

However mundane it seems now, convenience, the great liberator of humankind from labor, was a utopian ideal. By saving time and eliminating drudgery, it would create the possibility of leisure. And with leisure would come the possibility of devoting time to learning, hobbies or whatever else might really matter to us. Convenience would make available to the general population the kind of freedom for self-cultivation once available only to the aristocracy. In this way convenience would also be the great leveler.

This idea — convenience as liberation — could be intoxicating. Its headiest depictions are in the science fiction and futurist imaginings of the mid-20th century. From serious magazines like Popular Mechanics and from goofy entertainments like “The Jetsons” we learned that life in the future would be perfectly convenient. Food would be prepared with the push of a button. Moving sidewalks would do away with the annoyance of walking. Clothes would clean themselves or perhaps self-destruct after a day’s wearing. The end of the struggle for existence could at last be contemplated.

The dream of convenience is premised on the nightmare of physical work. But is physical work always a nightmare? Do we really want to be emancipated from all of it? Perhaps our humanity is sometimes expressed in inconvenient actions and time-consuming pursuits. Perhaps this is why, with every advance of convenience, there have always been those who resist it. They resist out of stubbornness, yes (and because they have the luxury to do so), but also because they see a threat to their sense of who they are, to their feeling of control over things that matter to them.

By the late 1960s, the first convenience revolution had begun to sputter. The prospect of total convenience no longer seemed like society’s greatest aspiration. Convenience meant conformity. The counterculture was about people’s need to express themselves, to fulfill their individual potential, to live in harmony with nature rather than constantly seeking to overcome its nuisances. Playing the guitar was not convenient. Neither was growing one’s own vegetables or fixing one’s own motorcycle. But such things were seen to have value nevertheless — or rather, as a result. People were looking for individuality again.

Perhaps it was inevitable, then, that the second wave of convenience technologies — the period we are living in — would co-opt this ideal. It would conveniencize individuality.

You might date the beginning of this period to the advent of the Sony Walkman in 1979. With the Walkman we can see a subtle but fundamental shift in the ideology of convenience. If the first convenience revolution promised to make life and work easier for you, the second promised to make it easier to be you. The new technologies were catalysts of selfhood. They conferred efficiency on self-expression.

Consider the man of the early 1980s, strolling down the street with his Walkman and earphones. He is enclosed in an acoustic environment of his choosing. He is enjoying, out in public, the kind of self-expression he once could experience only in his private den. A new technology is making it easier for him to show who he is, if only to himself. He struts around the world, the star of his own movie.

So alluring is this vision that it has come to dominate our existence. Most of the powerful and important technologies created over the past few decades deliver convenience in the service of personalization and individuality. Think of the VCR, the playlist, the Facebook page, the Instagram account. This kind of convenience is no longer about saving physical labor — many of us don’t do much of that anyway. It is about minimizing the mental resources, the mental exertion, required to choose among the options that express ourselves. Convenience is one-click, one-stop shopping, the seamless experience of “plug and play.” The ideal is personal preference with no effort.

We are willing to pay a premium for convenience, of course — more than we often realize we are willing to pay. During the late 1990s, for example, technologies of music distribution like Napster made it possible to get music online at no cost, and lots of people availed themselves of the option. But though it remains easy to get music free, no one really does it anymore. Why? Because the introduction of the iTunes store in 2003 made buying music even more convenient than illegally downloading it. Convenient beat out free.

As task after task becomes easier, the growing expectation of convenience exerts a pressure on everything else to be easy or get left behind. We are spoiled by immediacy and become annoyed by tasks that remain at the old level of effort and time. When you can skip the line and buy concert tickets on your phone, waiting in line to vote in an election is irritating. This is especially true for those who have never had to wait in lines (which may help explain the low rate at which young people vote).

The paradoxical truth I’m driving at is that today’s technologies of individualization are technologies of mass individualization. Customization can be surprisingly homogenizing. Everyone, or nearly everyone, is on Facebook: It is the most convenient way to keep track of your friends and family, who in theory should represent what is unique about you and your life. Yet Facebook seems to make us all the same. Its format and conventions strip us of all but the most superficial expressions of individuality, such as which particular photo of a beach or mountain range we select as our background image.

I do not want to deny that making things easier can serve us in important ways, giving us many choices (of restaurants, taxi services, open-source encyclopedias) where we used to have only a few or none. But being a person is only partly about having and exercising choices. It is also about how we face up to situations that are thrust upon us, about overcoming worthy challenges and finishing difficult tasks — the struggles that help make us who we are. What happens to human experience when so many obstacles and impediments and requirements and preparations have been removed?

Today’s cult of convenience fails to acknowledge that difficulty is a constitutive feature of human experience. Convenience is all destination and no journey. But climbing a mountain is different from taking the tram to the top, even if you end up at the same place. We are becoming people who care mainly or only about outcomes. We are at risk of making most of our life experiences a series of trolley rides.

Convenience has to serve something greater than itself, lest it lead only to more convenience. In her 1963 classic, “The Feminine Mystique,” Betty Friedan looked at what household technologies had done for women and concluded that they had just created more demands. “Even with all the new labor-saving appliances,” she wrote, “the modern American housewife probably spends more time on housework than her grandmother.” When things become easier, we can seek to fill our time with more “easy” tasks. At some point, life’s defining struggle becomes the tyranny of tiny chores and petty decisions.

An unwelcome consequence of living in a world where everything is “easy” is that the only skill that matters is the ability to multitask. At the extreme, we don’t actually do anything; we only arrange what will be done, which is a flimsy basis for a life.

We need to consciously embrace the inconvenient — not always, but more of the time. Nowadays individuality has come to reside in making at least some inconvenient choices. You need not churn your own butter or hunt your own meat, but if you want to be someone, you cannot allow convenience to be the value that transcends all others. Struggle is not always a problem. Sometimes struggle is a solution. It can be the solution to the question of who you are.

Embracing inconvenience may sound odd, but we already do it without thinking of it as such. As if to mask the issue, we give other names to our inconvenient choices: We call them hobbies, avocations, callings, passions. These are the noninstrumental activities that help to define us. They reward us with character because they involve an encounter with meaningful resistance — with nature’s laws, with the limits of our own bodies — as in carving wood, melding raw ingredients, fixing a broken appliance, writing code, timing waves or facing the point when the runner’s legs and lungs begin to rebel against him.

Such activities take time, but they also give us time back. They expose us to the risk of frustration and failure, but they also can teach us something about the world and our place in it.

So let’s reflect on the tyranny of convenience, try more often to resist its stupefying power, and see what happens. We must never forget the joy of doing something slow and something difficult, the satisfaction of not doing what is easiest. The constellation of inconvenient choices may be all that stands between us and a life of total, efficient conformity.

[literaturereviewhelp]

What explains European technological leadership by the nineteenth century   Introduction   It all began with the Age of Exploration in the 15th and 16th centuries. European ships boldly ventured into the seas and oceans of the world in search of new trading routes and partners to fuel a newly emerging capitalism in many of the European countries. The Age of Exploration was in turn rooted in the new ideas, technologies and spirit of enquiry that grew out of the early periods of the Renaissance. Prior to the Age of Exploration, the most vibrant and active economies of Europe had been in Mediterranean regions like Italy and Greece. But as a direct outcome of the daring sea expeditions carried out in the Age of Exploration, a new European economy became dominant. Known as the Atlantic economy, it was run and controlled by countries of Western Europe, such as Britain, France, Germany and Holland. These countries became the wealthiest and most powerful economies in Europe, and continue to be so to the present day. Even as trans-oceanic trade became commonplace, Europe was undergoing a commercial revolution. As trade and commerce assumed higher levels of importance, traders and merchants superceded feudal landowners to become the most powerful class in society. In relatively short time, for the first time in the history, the bourgeoisie began to take charge of the politics and government in the European nations. The European voyages of discovery led to a vast influx of precious metals from the New World and a wide variety of valuable commodities from Asian countries, thus raising prices, stimulating industry, and fostering a money economy. Expansion of trade and the money economy lead to the development of banks and other institutions of finance and credit. In the 17th century, the Dutch were in the forefront financially, but towards the end of the century, with the establishment of the Bank of England, Britain was set on the road of becoming the foremost economy in Europe. Capitalism kept on spreading, and a new class of commercial entrepreneur evolved from the old-type merchant adventurers. There was a fair amount of technolgy already present, many machines were known, and there were factories employing these machines and technology. However, these early and primitive factories were the exceptions rather than the rule, if only for the simple reason that they were still fuelled by wood. Read the full article

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Jan Ernst Matzeliger invented the shoe lasting machine in 1883. This machine automated the process of attaching the upper part of a shoe to the sole.

Matzeliger was born in Dutch Guiana (now Suriname) in 1852. He immigrated to the United States at age 20 and worked in a shoe factory in Lynn, Massachusetts. He died of tuberculosis in 1889 at the age of 37.

[fkwatchtw]

Humans have gone to great lengths to capture and measure time, as early as ancient Egypt (about 3,500 BC) there were sundial-like devices

Humans have gone to great lengths to capture and measure time, as early as ancient Egypt (about 3,500 BC) there were sundial-like devices, and ancient civilizations such as China and Greece also began to use sundials to measure time. By 1300 AD, after the invention of the arrest machine by the Europeans, and then the invention of the device of the regular shock of the wheel, the mechanical time of using the engine to drive began to appear around the 15th century, that is, from this time onwards, the clock watch industry gradually sprouted. In 1656, the well-known Dutch physicist, astronomer and mathematician Christiaan Huygens (Christiaan Huygens) developed the clock-holding structure, the accuracy of timekeeping was greatly improved, and the time was in the period of great geographical discovery, when various countries sent ships to explore the sea, the demand for accurate timepieces increased, which led to the vigorous development of clocks.

I have said a lot of this, just to let everyone know that the history of human creation of clocks has been gone for a long time, but the early watchmakers usually belonged to the form of personal studios, and there is no concept of "brand" today; As for the copy watch brands that we are familiar with today, we sometimes hear people talk about "100-year-old brands", so it can be seen that some brands in the table were founded in the early 20th century, or even more ago.

Many of today's well-known brands are experts in advanced watchmaking that have been around for more than 100 years, and they have witnessed the evolution of watches along the way. Compared with modern times, it seems that there is a specific process and scale for establishing a brand from scratch, but in the early days, the establishment of a brand is not necessarily a complete company, but may start from a watchmaker to start a self-established household, from a personal studio, a workshop formed by more people to work with, and then to a larger and larger local watch factory, and finally evolved into today's international brand, or a large group brand that has been merged by multinational enterprises.

The so-called 100-year-old brand is only a general statement, and there seem to be a lot of brands with a history of more than 100 years, and recently the foreign clock blogger IFLW has carefully compiled a list of well-known brand creation years, they have a total of 40 brands, the earliest of which was founded as far as 1735, and the latest was established in 2005, and the middle is 270 years behind!

So the question arises, who is the longest-established well-known brand in the watch forum, it should not be Rolex, they are a brand that was only established in the 20th century, so will it be the king of watches, Baidut Philippe? Or is it a treasure? These two brands are getting closer and closer to the answer, but neither is the correct solution, directly from the IFLW list of charts, we will find that there are four existing brands that have developed from the 18th century to the present, according to the oldest ranking of the year of establishment, in order of Baby (1735), Stanford Danton (1755), Baby Plate (1775) and Girard-Perregaux (1791), unexpectedly, the oldest year of creation is actually Baby.

The well-known brands after Girard-Perregaux all appeared after the 19th century, and probably INVICTA is not so well-known now, so it will feel a little abrupt when placed with other watches that are also on the list. THE 19 BRANDS OTHER THAN INVICTA ARE ALL FAMILIAR BRANDS TO WATCH FANS, BUT I DIDN'T EXPECT THAT PENAHAI AND SEIKO WERE ALSO ESTABLISHED IN THE 19TH CENTURY, AND THE HISTORY IS LONGER THAN EXPECTED.

[chococsun]

Chocolate factory

During the 18th century, the economy was prospering due to the trading networks established to bring cacao and other cash crops to different parts of the world. New economic changes helped prosper the industrial revolution, which had changed the chocolate game by making variations, the process easier to make, and widen consumers. What were the methods used to create the modern chocolate as we know it? There had been several inventors, some of which went on to create massive chocolate companies, who had created machines to solve problems that were present in the old way of making chocolate. 

The old way of making chocolate had followed a similar fashion to its origins; first you must prepare the cacao beans by fermenting and drying, then you must roast, winnow, and grind the beans to make the cacao into a paste or liquor form, lastly to make the chocolate it is to mix the paste with spices and liquids. All of this together is tedious work for artisans, and workers, who in the end could not produce high quality liquor in large batches. Along the way, people have invented different methods to produce chocolate from the cacao beans, but the problem lies with the natural fat content that the cacao beans have. Its fat content is over 50%, making it hard to produce chocolate in a solid form. According to Evolution of Chocolate Manufacturing by Rodney Snyder, Bradley Foliart Olsen, and Laura Pallas Brindle, “Previous methods had mixed water into the liquor to form a stiff paste, which was packed into cloth bags. As the bags were pressed, the cloth retained the cocoa solids while the fat pressed through the cloth. The cocoa solids were compressed into hard cocoa cakes, which turned gray in color and moldy because of the added water” (Snyder et. al, 614). Finding a way around the fat content proved to be a tough challenge to solve, as resources of cacao beans were being wasted into moldy hard cakes. 

So by 1828, Conrad van Houten, a Dutch inventor, had invented the Cacao Press which was to extract butter from cacao solids. His innovation was a hydraulic press that reduced the fat content of the cacao beans to 27% to make a cacao cake that could be turned into powder. One thing to note is that van Houten did not find a solution with the remaining butter, which would be later solved by another inventor. The next thing that was invented by the same man was dutching which was to use alkaline salts to remove the bitter taste and make the chocolate powder more water soluble. The final results of Conrad van. Houten's invention was that the cake/powder mixture of chocolate has fat-reduced content, it is soluble, and Dutch process cocoa is one the standard ingredients used in most chocolates today. 

The next inventor was Phillipe Suchard in 1830, where he invented the Melangeur, a chocolate mixer. The problem before hand was that adding substance to chocolate in a solid form would only make the chocolate grainy.  In the video lecture titled Chocolate factory: modern manufacturing by Patricia Juarez-Dappe, the Melangeur was used to, “Mix chocolate with other substances. He [Suchard] ground sugar and cocoa powder into a smooth paste. The machine consisted of a heated granite plate and several rollers moving forward and backwards, using hydraulic powder power. This allowed sugar to be mixed into chocolate and eliminated its grainy texture” (Juarez-Dappe, 12:29). The mixture of all the ingredients allowed for chocolate to be smoother and for it to be combined with other substances. The next two inventions had less to do with machinery and more with substances to give the product that many know today: the chocolate bar and milk chocolate. 

The former was invented in 1848 by a man named Joseph Fry. Whose family later on went to have a massive company in the UK and changed the identity of chocolate. When using the van Houten machine, Fry had no idea what to do with the butter extracted from the pressed cacao beans, so his solution was to “create a blend of cacao powder and sugar with the melted cacao butter. Instead of using warm water, they added the cacao butter, so the resulting smoother paste could be cast into a mold” (Juarez-Dappe, 13:43). With the creation of the molded chocolate, Joseph Fry’s family company had become the largest chocolate maker in the UK and would later on be the sole supplier of chocolate and cocoa powder to the royal navy in the 19th century. The creation of milk chocolate was a dual partnership between Daniel Peter and Henri Nestle in 1870. Adding regular milk into chocolate was a problem, as the milk would go spoiled, so the solution to this problem was Nestle’s creation of dehydrated condensed milk. By adding the condensed milk with the cacao solids had created milk chocolate, helping to extend shelf life and making sweeter chocolate. 

Swiss chocolate maker Rudolph Lindt had created the conching machine in 1879 to help knead out the grainy chocolate, as Suchard’s Melangeur couldn’t get rid of all the graininess. This machine entails rolling chocolate liqueur and using that heat to achieve smoothness and taste, that would be used in cakes and cookie batter. All of the inventions and substances created, had improved the quality of chocolate that many consume today. But it is always important to note, that no matter how better things are for chocolate making, that cannot be shared to those who cultivate the beans. 

Sources

Juarez-Dappe, Patricia. “Chocolate factory: modern manufacturing” YouTube. August 30, 2020. Video, https://youtu.be/1VQTQmqusF4?si=8dnvoedMIre0wz7X

Snyder, Rodney, Bradley Foliart Olsen, and Laura Pallas Brindle. “From Stone Metates to Steel Mills.” In The Evolution of Chocolate Manufacturing. 2008

[candy-floss-crazy]

In 1926 Hendrik op het Veld formed Veld Koning Machinefabriek (Veld Koning Machine Factory). This was abbreviated to Vekoma, and another legendary Dutch ride builder was created. Only inline with many amusement ride manufacturers, it actually wasn't. Originally it built farm equipment, and equipment for the mining industry. After the 1956 closure of the Dutch mining industry, the company switched to producing pipework for the petrochemical industry. 1970's And The Move Into The Entertainment Industry The US based roller coaster manufacturer Arrow Dynamics contracted Vekoma to build the steel work for their European rides in the 70's. As demand in Europe increased Vekoma eventually licensed the technology from Arrow and began building rides in their own right with 3 coasters being produced in 1979. Named the Super Wirbel the first coaster was an inverted double corkscrew installed in Holiday Park, Hassloch Germany. Two of the first riders were the German Formula 1 drivers Rolf Stommelen and Harald Ertl , eventually they produced 7 examples. They went on the produce the Invertigo, Boomerang and Whirlwind coasters. Alliance With Chance Morgan In 2006 they formed an alliance with the USA based manufacturer Chance Morgan, with Chance building the steelwork for the coasters. They produced four in total during this period. Acquisition Of Bussink Wheels Of Excellence Vekoma acquired the Wheels of Excellence range from Ronald Bussink, whereby Bussink would continue to build the 100 metre wheels and Vekoma would build wheels in the smaller 40-80 metre market. They terminated the agreement with Chance in 2012, but licensed the R60 metre wheel to a new offshoot of chance called Chance American Wheels. Madhouse And SkyShuttle Vekoma also manufacture a couple of other attractions. The most curious in the aptly named mad house. Designed to give the riders the illusion of weightlessness and spinning upside down. In actuality, it is an updated version of the 'Rib Tickler', a ride that graced British fairgrounds in the 80's, though never presented as well as the Vekoma version. The other is the SkyShuttle. Raising riders upto 50 metres into the sky with a gently rotating gondola, the ride allows spectacular views over the full site. Acquisition By Sensei Technologies In 2018 Vekoma was acquired by Sansei Technologies a Japanese based company who specialises in both Amusement rides and elevators. The agreement was that Vekoma would continue to be run as a separate entity, so hopefully the brand will continue. Read the full article

[lboogie1906]

Jan Ernst Matzeliger (September 15, 1852 – August 24, 1889) was an inventor whose lasting machine brought significant change to the manufacturing of shoes.

He left Dutch Guiana at age 19 and worked as a mechanic on a Dutch East Indies merchant ship for several years before settling in Philadelphia, where he first learned the shoe trade. He spoke adequate English (Dutch was his native tongue) and moved to Massachusetts to pursue his interest in the shoe industry. He went to work in the Harney Brothers Shoe factory.

In the early days of shoemaking, shoes were made mainly by hand. For proper fit, the customer’s feet had to be duplicated in size and form by creating a stone or wooden mold called a “last” from which the shoes were sized and shaped. Since the greatest difficulty in shoemaking was the assembly of the soles to the upper shoe, it required great skill to tack and sew the two components together. It was thought that such intricate work could only be done by skilled human hands. This phase was not yet mechanized and shoe lasters held great power over the shoe industry. They would hold work stoppages without regard for their fellow workers’ desires, resulting in long periods of unemployment for them.

He obtained a patent for his invention of an automated shoe laster in 1883. A skilled hand laster could produce 50 pairs in a ten-hour day. His machine could produce between 150 and 700 pairs of shoes a day, cutting shoe prices across the nation in half. #africanhistory365 #africanexcellence